BuildGrove

What was the problem?

Freelancing at any real volume turns into a second job of status updates: "is my site down," "where's the invoice," "what did you change this week." Answering that over WhatsApp doesn't scale past a couple of clients, and it makes the whole engagement feel informal, even when the work isn't.

I wanted something a client logs into and actually trusts, not another spreadsheet-and-message-thread system dressed up.

How did I approach it?

BuildGrove is two sides of the same app.

On my side, it's a per-client operator view: site health and uptime, visitor analytics, active services, invoices, and every asset tied to that client in one place.

On the client's side, it's a scoped portal into their own project only:

• Live progress, phase by phase, from discovery through QA and launch.
• Site health, so "is it up" is answered before they have to ask.
• Invoice status, always visible, no separate email thread.
• Recent messages, a direct line to me with no context-switch to email or WhatsApp.
• An AI project assistant scoped to their own project data, so "when will my site launch" or "what's left to pay" gets an answer instantly, day or night.

The phase tracker isn't hand-updated. Progress and the latest-commits feed pull straight from the project's GitHub repo, so a client sees real, timestamped engineering activity instead of my word for it.

Active services surface right on the dashboard too. AdLoop, the marketing automation product I'm building, ships as one of the services a BuildGrove client can be running.

What was the outcome?

Every client engagement now runs through a system built specifically for it, instead of ad hoc messages and manual invoices. Clients get a professional, self-serve view into their own project; I get one place that tracks everything I'm responsible for across every job on my plate. Still actively growing as the client list does.